評(píng)論
打印
Carbon capture and storage
碳捕獲與存儲(chǔ)技術(shù)
Supergrass
勁草
Plants in the ocean are better at storing carbon than those on land
海洋植物比陸地植物更善于儲(chǔ)存碳
Off the coast of Formentera, an island in the Spanish Mediterranean, lives an organism that stretches 15km from one end to the other. Posidonia oceanica, more prosaically known as seagrass, spreads by sending shoots out beneath the sediment. Entire meadows, covering several hectares, can thus be made up of a single organism. The grasses are long-lived, too. The vast meadow in Formentera is thought to have been spreading for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
西班牙地中海的福門特拉島海岸生活著一種有機(jī)體，這種有機(jī)體從一端延伸到另一端的長度達(dá)15公里。波西多尼亞水生植物，通俗點(diǎn)兒講叫海草。它通過在沉積物下發(fā)射嫩芽進(jìn)行繁殖，因此就連覆蓋數(shù)公頃的整片海草都是由單一有機(jī)體組成。這些草也很長壽。福門特拉廣闊的海草床據(jù)悉已經(jīng)蔓延了數(shù)萬年甚至數(shù)十萬年。
But the seagrass is more than just a biological curiosity. Along with two other kinds of coastal ecosystem—mangrove swamps and tidal marshes—seagrass meadows are particularly good at taking carbon dioxide from the air and converting it into plant matter. That makes all three ecosystems important for efforts to control climate change.
但海草不僅是一種奇特的生物。海草床，還有另外兩種沿海生態(tài)系統(tǒng)——紅樹林沼澤和潮汐沼澤，尤其擅長從空氣中吸收二氧化碳并將其轉(zhuǎn)化為植物物質(zhì)。這使得這三個(gè)生態(tài)系統(tǒng)對(duì)于控制氣候變化都很重要。
This role was highlighted in a report published on March 2nd by UNESCO, an arm of the United Nations, on "blue carbon"—the sort captured by Earth's oceanic and coastal ecosystems. In total around 33bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (about three-quarters of the world's emissions in 2019) are locked away in the planet's bluecarbon sinks. Research by Carlos Duarte, the report's author and a marine ecologist at King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia, has shown that one hectare of seagrass can soak up as much carbon dioxide each year as 15 hectares of rainforest.
聯(lián)合國教科文組織3月2日發(fā)布的一份關(guān)于“藍(lán)碳”(地球海洋和沿海生態(tài)系統(tǒng)所捕獲的碳)的報(bào)告中強(qiáng)調(diào)了這種作用?？偣布s有330億噸二氧化碳(約占2019年全球排放量的四分之三)被鎖在地球的藍(lán)碳匯中。該報(bào)告的作者、沙特阿拉伯阿卜杜拉國王大學(xué)海洋生態(tài)學(xué)家卡洛斯·杜阿爾特的研究表明，一公頃海草每年吸收的二氧化碳相當(dāng)于15公頃雨林。
All this is attracting interest in blue carbon from those keen to use natural processes, rather than human technologies such as direct-air capture, to suck greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. In 2018 Apple partnered with Conservation International, a charity, to protect 11,000 hectares of mangroves on the Colombian coast. The firm estimates the project could lock away around 1m tonnes of carbon.
所有這些都吸引了那些熱衷于利用自然過程而不是人類技術(shù)(如直接捕獲空氣)從大氣中吸收溫室氣體的人對(duì)藍(lán)碳的興趣。2018年，蘋果公司與慈善機(jī)構(gòu)保護(hù)國際合作，保護(hù)了哥倫比亞海岸1.1萬公頃的紅樹林。該公司估計(jì)，該項(xiàng)目可以儲(chǔ)存約100萬噸碳。
One reason that blue-carbon ecosystems make such effective sinks is that submerged forests are denser than their landbased equivalents. They can also trap floating debris and organic matter, which settles on the sea floor and can double the amount of carbon stored away.
藍(lán)碳生態(tài)系統(tǒng)之所以會(huì)產(chǎn)生如此巨大的碳匯，其中一個(gè)原因是水下森林比陸上森林密度更大。它們還能捕獲漂浮在海底的碎片和有機(jī)物，使碳的儲(chǔ)存量增加一倍。
譯文由可可原創(chuàng)，僅供學(xué)習(xí)交流使用，未經(jīng)許可請(qǐng)勿轉(zhuǎn)載。
